Preparing a Surface for Painting

If you follow the advice given and prepare your paintings correctly you will eliminate many of the long term problems and disappointments experienced by acrylic and oil painters.

Choosing Supports

The support is the surface on which you plan to paint. Supports can be either rigid, such as wood or masonite, or flexible, like paper or canvas. If the paint film is to remain intact, the support must have good long term stability and durability.
The main advantage of using a rigid support is that it induces less strain into the paint layers. Therefore you need only concern yourself with the movement of the paint film itself, rather than with the movement of both paint film and support. You can use a wide variety of supports for acrylics and oils, but whatever you choose to paint on, thorough preparation is essential.

Rigid Supports and Their Preparation

Masonry surfaces used for mural painting often contain free alkali from the cement or plaster used, and this can attack some pigments. Wallboards made from woodpulp may contain tannin which can bleed through to the surface of the painting years later, leaving a dark stain. If you intend painting on wallboards, pale coloured ones are preferred.
To prepare, coat the surface with two coats of Atelier Binder Medium to provide a tough flexible seal coat. When this is dry the surface is ready to be “gessoed” . Atelier Gesso is made from acrylic emulsion and contains titanium for whiteness and calcite grit to give “tooth” for overpainting.

Flexible Supports and Their Preparation

Canvas is by far the most popular material but it is important for you to know there are major differences in performance.

Cotton Duck

is often used because it is cheap, but it deteriorates in around 20 years.

Linen Canvas

is slightly more durable than cotton but is not as robust as people think. Its main disadvantage is that like cotton, linen fibres respond to changes in humidity, swelling in humid weather and shrinking in dry weather. Careful ground preparation is essential.

Polyester Canvas

is chemically inert and does not deteriorate with time. In this respect it is much more durable than linen canvas. Its main advantages are that it can be bought in an off-white colour, it does not react to water and does not expand and contract with changing temperature and humidity levels. A stretched polyester canvas is stable without the need of a humidity controlled atmosphere. It also means that polyester canvas can be unrolled on the floor and will not creep or shrink when worked on.

NOTE: In many parts of the world temperature and humidity levels change quite rapidly causing movement in any non-synthetic canvas support. This is the principal cause of cracking in older oil paintings.